In the 1990s and early 2000s, Japanese cinema flourished in a new golden age. A wave of startlingly original works emerged across all genres, featuring fearless experimentation, irrepressible energy, and a joyous disregard for the accepted rules of film making. Many of the directors of these films, regarded internationally as heirs to the auterist school of cinema, started their careers making direct-to-video pink movies (soft-core pornos) and V-cinema (cheap and violent gangster films). This screening explores the unique mix of genre film-making and avant garde cinema that produced some of the most exciting films of the last 30 years.

Drawing from the world’s rich vein of avant garde, experimental, underground, and otherwise provocative cinema, Projections from the Underground is a series of film screenings at La Escocesa programmed by artist David Franklin. All of the screenings are free and open to everyone, and we hope to create a communal experience for people to discover and enjoy cinema and art in an informal setting.

This edition will present the first film by one of world cinema’s most interesting directors, Jia Zhangke. A truly independent production, shot on 16mm in the director’s hometown, and featuring a cast of his friends and other non-professionals, Xiao Wu captures Chinese society at a crucial moment of transition, just as it is taking its first uneasy steps on the way to becoming a global superpower.

The film will be accompanied by a documentary shot 12 years later, Disorder, which shows us how the journey we saw China embarking on in Xiao Wu has progressed. This is an uncompromising film which captures the serious social problems and dangers faced by Chinese society in its efforts to modernise.

Drawing from the world’s rich vein of avant garde, experimental, underground, and otherwise provocative cinema, Projections from the Underground is a series of film screenings at La Escocesa programmed by artist David Franklin. All of the screenings are free and open to everyone, and we hope to create a communal experience for people to discover and enjoy cinema and art in an informal setting.

Projections from the Underground returns — the series of film screenings I’m programming for La Escocesa starts again this Friday May 26, with a look at Chinese cinema. Everybody welcome, free entry:::

The final film by master director Elem Klimov is a highpoint of Russian cinema, and perhaps the finest film about war ever made. A hallucinogenic nightmare of overwhelming intensity, Come and See takes the dreamlike poetry of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Herzog’s Aguirre and descends into a swamp of disorientation and brutality to create a singular cinematic work. Even more surprising then that this film was a fully authorised product of the state film studio Mosfilm, and that its director, one of whose films had previously been banned by the censors, was able to produce an uncomprising work that draws on his personal experiences as a boy during the German occupation of Russia. Come and See, although critically lauded remains relatively little known, perhaps due to its supreme intensity; it was to be Klimov’s final film, the director sure that he could do nothing more with cinema to follow up his masterpiece. We are excited to show this one of a kind film, which is a fascinating mix of auteurist and big studio film making, combining uncompromising politics and personal testimony with iconic cinematic visuals and ferocious performances.

Drawing from the world’s rich vein of avant garde, experimental, underground, and otherwise provocative cinema, Projections from the Underground is a series of film screenings at La Escocesa programmed by resident artist David Franklin. All of the screenings are free and open to everyone, and we hope to create a communal experience for people to discover and enjoy cinema and art in an informal setting.

La Escocesa proudly presents a new series of film screenings programmed by resident artist David Franklin. Drawing from the world’s rich vein of avant garde, experimental, underground, and otherwise provocative cinema, Projections from the Underground will present a selection of films representative of particular movements, directors, and moments in cultural history.

Over the next few months we will present the following sessions, with many more to follow:

Art Theatre Guild and the Japanese New Wave (three days of screenings) // Russian Cinema in the 1980s // Chinese Cinema – The Sixth Generation

All of the screenings are free and open to everyone, and we hope to create a communal experience for people to discover and enjoy cinema and art in an informal setting. The season starts on Friday the 6th of November at 20:00h with a special post-Hallowe’en session of ferocious horror movies. Bring snacks, bring a warm coat, and – most importantly – bring someone to grab when you’re scared!